Open Giant Gingerbread

[Marnie Frogg]

Halloween had provided a wealth of fun (and spooky) ideas for Marnie and she planned to capitalize immediately, ideally before she forgot. The biggest of course, had come from her own costume. Cardboard gingerbread had been fun and easy, but Marnie realized she was severely under-utilizing the potential of giant, life-sized lollies and gingerbread. If she could make it out of cardboard, why not make a real house out of gingerbread? Or maybe like a playschool sized house, she figured, eying the ceiling of the art room above her. She'd wanted to work in the Kitchens, being closer to the source and all, but the elves were already fed up with her presence after some polite and enthusiastic begging for gingerbread and other biscuits so Marnie decided she shouldn't press her luck and had relocated to the arts room.

Now, she was balanced precariously on a stool, trying to line up a slab of gingerbread about as tall as she was perpendicular with the one she'd put on the floor. An englargement charm had made short work of making her materals the right size but Marnie was starting to realize maybe she should have build the house first and then enlarged it, cause this was already turning into hard work, giant gumdrops and slabs of biscuit strewn across the table near here as she tried to wedge the first "wall" into place. At least it smelt delicious in here, she figured.

 

[Daria Bright-Root]

Most of the parts of the castle Daria felt at home in were the hidden ones - quiet window nooks and dark corridors nobody ever went through. It was easier to be alone by herself than alone in a crowd, and nobody ever noticed shy girls like her. But her favourite parts of the castle were still the gardens and the arts room. She hadn't gotten used to the cold in Aotearoa yet, so even though the spring was warming up, she didn't much feel like going outside. Instead she decided to head to the arts room and do some drawing for a while, or maybe even sing if the room was empty. She was surprised when she arrived to instead see... some kind of chaos, and of course Marnie was at the center of it. She had only spoken with her classmate properly once before, but she was well and truly familiar with the chaos that seemed to follow Marnie everywhere she went. "What are you doing?" Daria asked curiously, nerves forgotten in the face of such a bizarre sight.

 

[Marnie Frogg]

Marnie wobbled precariously as she twisted to look who'd just walked in, beaming when she saw Daria and having to make a sudden grab to stop the gingerbread wall she'd just let go of from falling. "Daria! Hey! I'm building a giant gingerbread house, I mean it probably won't end up much bigger than like a tree house or a playhouse but it'll be edible I got inspired after making my Halloween costume I dunno if you saw it I was a gingerbread house obviously but it was made out of cardboard and lollies and it got me thinking wouldn't it be cool to sit inside a real gingerbread house so I had to make one though I'm having a little trouble do you think you can hold this steady for me I've never made a real one of these before like one I couldn't use glue or permanent sticking charms on and I think I need more frosting," she explained, motioning to the giant tub of white frosting she'd enlarged nearby as well, glad to have an extra hand whether Daria had intended it or not.

 

[Daria Bright-Root]

Somehow every time Daria spoke with Marnie the Hufflepuff's propensity for speech shocked her all over again. She stood still as she tried to take in everything Marnie was saying, processing it as the girl spoke so quickly in her second language that she could barely understand, despite being fairly fluent in her opinion. "Oh..." She settled on, with nothing else to say, and moved to hold the bit Marnie had indicated. She had made gingerbread a few times with her dad, but nothing on this scale. She looked over the house and the ingredients, thinking. "I think your icing is a little too runny." She said, interest in the project overriding her shyness. "Try adding some more icing sugar to stiffen it. It'll hold better."

 

[Wisteria Lacewing]

Wish was reaching the point where studying only made her more stressed out about how many thing she needed to learn. The library had been getting too loud for her comfort, anyway. Holding her textbook close to her chest, she wandered the halls in search of a quiet place to recharge and thought of the art room. She was disappointed to see it was already occupied, but her mood lifted when she realised who was in there. Marnie was one of her best friends by technicality, as Wish's habit of keeping to herself made meeting new people tricky. She didn't know Daria very well, but Wish thought she had a nice energy and wanted to get to know her better. Creeping closer to the other two, Wish peered over their shoulders to see what they were doing. She didn't know a lot about baking. That was something her parents insisted was reserved for house elves - although she'd once caught her mother baking muffins once and was still quite unsure why that was supposed to be a secret. She wasn't sure how to be helpful in this situation. "Are you going to live in it?" she asked quietly. It seemed a little impractical, but Wish hoped a livable gingerbread house could be real.

 

[Marnie Frogg]

Marnie blinked a few times at Daria's suggestion a slow smile forming of her face that quickly grew into a bright grin. "Oh Daria do you know about cooking or baking and stuff I didn't know that about you that's so cool you'll definitely have to help me now," she said excitedly, bouncing down from the ladder now that Daria was holding the wall she'd been messing with.

Daria was an interesting girl, she was definitely cool and talented, obviously, but she was so quiet that each little tidbit of information Marnie got to learn about her felt like a treasure hunt.

"Hmm I already enlarged the frosting do you think I should enlarge the powdered sugar too before adding it in or just pour a bunch in at regular size would that make the ratio all weird what does giant powder sugar look like is that just regular sugar then?" Marnie mused, turning with delight when she realized Wish had joined them too. "Wish! I wish, haha, I don't think we'd be allowed but how cool would it be to hang out in it for a bet not mention I bet everything would smell amazing we'd probably even smell amazing afterwards as well I like tried to charm my costume to smell like gingerbread for Halloween and didn't really work but I swear I could smell it on my clothes for ages after and it was so good though it did make me hungry," Marnie explained, eying Wish hopefully on the chance that she could be convinced to join the project.